Battery metals firm American Manganese (AMY) has reported its technology can extract 92% of lithium, nickel, and cobalt from NCA cathode scrap material.
The results were recorded by private sector research laboratory Kemetco Research after continuous operation of the leach stage of AMY’s RecycLiCo process.
The company also reported the pilot plant tests, by batch operation, demonstrated 99.5% extraction, which the company believes is the benchmark before continuous operation.
The company also intends to test the extraction process on NMC cathode scrap.
The pilot-plant extraction results follow successful optimisation tests that resulted in a 356% increase in the pilot-plant’s pre-leach process capacity to 292kg/day of lithium-ion battery cathode material.
The company’s next milestone is to produce recycled products from the cathode scrap material that meet the specific particle shape, size, and density required by the cathode and battery manufacturers.
Larry Reaugh, president and CEO of American Manganese, said: “We are focused on our business strategy of recycling cathode scrap from the battery manufacturing process and directly and seamlessly integrating our recycled product into the battery manufacturing process.
“This would avoid the need to sell our recycled product further upstream within the battery material supply chain. Therefore, our continued optimisation tests are critical in achieving the material specifications required by tier-one battery manufacturers.”
